Perrysburg committee: transit service to no longer be funded

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Gregory Symington, of Perrysburg, voices his concerns at the lack of public transportation in the city during the Perrysburg City Council's Health, Sanitation, and Public Utilities Committee regular meeting at the city's municipal building.THE BLADE/KATIE RAUSCHEnlarge
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Public transportation in Perrysburg came to a halt at 8 p.m. today, and the city is not going to fund any more service without levy support, officials said.

"There is no money to provide service past today," councilman J. Todd Grayson, chair of the Health, Sanitation, and Public Utilities Committee, said at the committee meeting today.

Perrysburg City Council is likely to receive recommendation from the committee to put another levy for public transportation on the May ballot next year, but there wasn't enough support voiced at the last council meeting to offer any recommendation to use general fund money to extend services until then, councilman Timothy McCarthy said.

That left some residents, many with disabilities who rely on paratransit services, dissatisfied.

"That's my life source. I have no other transportation," said Rosa Linda Brown, of Perrysburg.

Ms. Brown said she uses the city's call-a-ride service to take granddaughters in her care to the library and to church, as well as get to the grocery store, medical appointments, and work.

Voters on Nov. 6 narrowly rejected a 1.45-mill, five-year levy that would have hired Ride Right, of St. Louis, to operate Perrysburg's proposed transit system. The Wood County Board of Elections was to certify the election results at 8 p.m.

Ride Right has been providing interim call-a-ride service since TARTA service ended Sept. 22, a result of residents voting to withdraw from the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority in March.

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